There are many activities performed on greatly different types of material in the kitchen, and for each type of activity as well as each type of material, a different utensil may be commercially available.
However, such numerous and various utensils may each require optimization, or at least improvement, or combination with each other to save space, costs, etc. In addition, it would be desirable that the utensils be useful both separately and in combination. Some combinations may even produce a new effect as a result of operating the combination.
One of the options for combining utensils is utensils bearing different types of blades, see for example US 2008198691 to Sunbeam Products Inc., that describes a blade assembly suited for both blending and food processing in small throat blender jars. The blade assembly includes a plurality of blade forms each designed to perform a specific blending or processing task while simultaneously working together and with the geometric restrictions of the jar to optimize the assembly's capability to crush ice, blend or mix liquids and/or semi-solid materials, and to chop, cut, or slice solid food items.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,419,111 to Euro-Pro Operating, LLP, describes a multi-blade food processing apparatus having two independent blade assemblies, each of the blade assemblies having two opposed horizontal cutting blades, wherein the upper independent blade assembly is selectively removable from the apparatus. The blade assemblies are positioned at 90 degrees from each other but may include additional positions for orienting the blades at any angle with respect to each other.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,826 to Sunbeam products Inc. describes a blender blade having a bottom wavy or undulate configuration for blending ingredients in a blender and a top aerating blade. The wavy blade stirs ingredients into the mixture, rather than chopping and grinding the ingredients, thereby retaining the ingredients integrity. The top blade pulls ingredients and air into the mixture to be mixed. The resultant mixture has a heterogeneous, rather than homogenous, and textured consistency.
Despite the multi-bladed structure of these and other utensils, and even despite the multi-angled/multi-oriented/multi-surfaced structures of blades in some processors, a common problem in food processors is their limited capability to allow the blades to efficiently and evenly go through all layers in the food preparation, thus creating isolated mixing zones of varying contents/particle sizes/consistencies; in other words, the blades tend to go through the layer on their height and perhaps a bit below and above, but layers considerably lower and higher than the blades tend to linger beyond the blades such that the food preparation is not homogeneous and not evenly cut.
Such problems might be exacerbated in food preparations including finely divided dry solids, herbs, and low-density fluids, such as oily fluids, that often float on the surface of the stirred and cut preparation. Such preparations require good top-to-bottom circulation.
It will also occur that particular materials, such as highly viscous and dense materials, may be particularly problem materials that are poorly processed by commercially available systems. Conversely, as discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,964,301 to E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, agitators designed to operate at a fixed (high) speed in viscous fluids produce too violent mixing in low-viscosity materials, which might cause loss of material, messy utensils etc.
Therefore, we have recognized a need for more adaptable, thorough, and preferably efficient and controlled processing of food preparations.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a simple yet adaptable food processing apparatus having a blade configuration as well as convecting elements to improve chopping and/or aeration uniformity, homogeneity and efficiency for example, and provide more activities with a single utensil, optionally including an accessory for fuller adaptability to different types and amounts of food preparations. Additionally, we have also recognized a need for allowing more efficient whipping (more efficient introduction of air) of food stuffs than is currently available.
One object of the present invention to provide a universal blade apparatus composed of several elements that can be mounted together in a food processor and that is capable of manipulating and preparing many different types of food commonly prepared by many different kinds of tools such as coffee grinder, blander, meat chopper, juicer, etc.